


Soulmates

by NowThatWereDone



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, Past Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers, Soulmate AU, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-05
Updated: 2016-01-05
Packaged: 2018-05-12 01:47:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5649232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NowThatWereDone/pseuds/NowThatWereDone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It takes years before Steve learns the name of his soulmate. It takes seconds for him to realize that he wishes the name on his palm was different./ Or, another fic request about Steve and Natasha and soulmate marks where their name is supposed to be on your hand.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Soulmates

**Author's Note:**

> It's a one shot so typos and rushing are very likely to have happened... Sorry, lol. Also from Tumblr.

Steve had always wondered about the name in his palm. The letters were so soft, so intangible, he really couldn’t read it. He used to stay up at night rubbing the pad of his hand in a contemplative fashion. Some nights, he’d feel a little flicker on his skin, he’d make out maybe an A, maybe two. But mostly, Steve didn’t have any idea who his soulmate would be.

The other kids used to mock him about it, and if they didn’t mock him about that it was his hair, his wiry frame, the way his clothes hung off of his body in a fashion a little too awkward to even be remotely stylish. Bucky always told him to forget about it, but that was because he already knew the name on his hand (a hand he covered, though, as the brunette said day in and day out, ‘just because I know my soulmate, doesn’t mean you have to').

Sometimes Steve thought he just didn’t have a soulmate. Made a kind of sick sense considering how much of a scrawny punk he was.

It wasn’t until the War that Steve began feeling something. A negligible tingling. Definitely an A. A T? Was that a T? Steve had been staring at his hand a little too hard when he met Peggy Carter, and for a moment (or more than a moment), he’d really thought that the sharp lance of pain in his hand had to do with her. But if so, shouldn’t her name have been clear to read months (even years) earlier? Shouldn’t he be able to trace the letters of her on his skin, stare at it every night?

His name was on her, though, and that was honestly good enough for Steve. He was a defective kid, after all. No wonder Peggy’s name didn’t show up all that clear (her real name was Margaret, so the ‘A’s and the ‘T’ made perfect sense, he thought desperately).

He became Captain America shortly after that and fought for peace, justice, and the American Way. Or something. Whatever he was fighting for was better than the enemy he was out to destroy; Hitler first and then Hydra. He was a good soldier. Maybe too good.

The letters didn’t burn anymore as the war continued. They didn’t burn when he saw Peggy for the first time in weeks. It didn’t burn when he heard her bell like laugh, or saw her in the middle of grilling a slacking soldier, or saw the things he most admired about the tough woman. It didn’t burn when he kissed her before going after Red Skull.

It didn’t burn when her voice broke over the intercom, his name a crumpled plea.

“ _Steve.”_ Steve, stay, Steve don’t go. But it was too late, he had to put it in the water, he had to—

Was this why the name never became clear? Because Steve was going to die?

The aircraft hit the water, slammed into it really, sending water crashing through the windshield, drowning Steve, suffocating Steve. And in his last moments of consciousness, his last moments of life in the water that froze his bones, Steve felt it.

Fire in his hand.

He made out an ‘I’ before he succumbed to the darkness.

*

He woke up in a new world. A foreign world. _An alien world_. And his time there got stranger and stranger. There were sleeker cars, devices people played mindless games on, microwaves, medical innovations, peace…

Kind of.

The world still needed Captain America, the dark eyed Nick Fury had told him. We’ll always need you. Steve considered those words, absentmindedly running a thumb over the skin of his hand. Ever since he came out of the ice, he’d felt his hand burning, strokes and lines searing into his skin, as if making up for lost time.

He had an ‘N’, an ‘A’, a ‘T’, an ‘I’, and an ‘A. The newest additions over the next few days was another A and an L. _Natalia_. The name wasn’t something he’d expected, really, but after years of nothing, Steve took it gladly, rolling it over and over in his head.

_Natalia, Natalia, Natalia._

Then the world went to hell again as a supposed god came to dominate New York and Fury recruited Steve to fight alongside a group of, well, superheroes. He remembered landing on their hellicarrier (a device Steve’s 40’s mind still couldn’t process), he remembered Fury leading him across the gravely walkway and motioning to someone he was supposed to meet, he remembered the moment he felt his hand burn so hot it felt like it was going to fall off—

“Steve Rogers. Natasha Romanoff.”

Natasha? Steve closed his hand swiftly, digging his nails in to alleviate the pain as he stared at the woman with locks of fire standing before him. Her face was impassively blank. Beautiful, too. Had she not felt anything? But then, Fury had introduced her as Natasha. His soulmate was named Natalia. Similar, but….

“Ma’am,” Steve said, stiffly. Romanoff regarded him with only a minimal amount of warmth.

“Hi.” She must not have felt anything. She wasn’t Natalia.

*

He still had his doubts, though.

It’d been a few months of him knowing the Avengers, and a few months of him knowing Natasha Romanoff. And, boy, was she something. The woman was… she was just… _herself._ Tragically and majestically herself. A force on the field with wicked intelligence and the ferocity of a lion… But she was subtle about everything, unlike some of their other associates (Stark, Thor, even himself at times).

She was beautiful, she was terrifying… she reminded him a bit of Peggy, really, but only a bit. And her hair… there were nights Steve wanted to paint the exact shade of red those loose spirals were, paint the way it fell against her fair neck, how it made her green eyes pop. His infatuation only got worse when Fury started assigning them together on missions, and then Natasha decided she liked him enough to tease him on a daily basis.

“Careful with that load, Old Man, you wouldn’t want to throw out your back,” the woman would say as she casually strode by whenever Steve helped Rumlow unload gear.

“Was Abraham Lincoln really honest?” she once mused when the two happened to be in the break room at the same time.

“What was it like? When dinosaurs roamed the earth, I mean.” She was always so subtle with her jokes, her face nearly blank save for the hint of mirth in her eyes. Steve began yearning for the moments their paths would cross, craving the banter and teasing and her and—

Maybe it _was_ her.

One day, Steve found Natasha in the gym. She had just finished training, it seemed, as she was sitting on the work bench with her feet propped up, drinking slow, lazy swigs from her bottle. In no hurry. He knew that look very well, the look of someone who’d just unleashed nightmares and stress and pain onto a punching bag and had nothing left to give.

“Afternoon, Romanoff,” Steve had greeted as cheerfully as usual.

“You know I wouldn’t kill you if you called me Natasha.” Steve dropped his training bag on the bench near the spy, considering her words. “…I might maim you, you know, but not kill. That’d be un-American, taking out George Washington’s best friend.” Steve smirked.

“Ha-ha, very funny.”

“Thank you, I worked hard to make that one fit.”

“I can tell.”

“It wasn’t that much of a stretch. You’re all red-white-and-justice. Washington would’ve loved you.”

“I bet he would’ve.” A beat passed. Steve tried ignoring the steady heat in his hand as he wrapped his knuckles, tied his shoes… He wanted to forget about it, focus on Natasha and only her…. But a part of him knew better than that. “Hey, uh… Natasha?”

“Yes?” What was it about her that made it seem like she could read minds? Steve purposefully avoided Natasha’s calculating gaze, fixing and re-fixing the gauze covering his fists.

“…Is Natasha… your full name?” She knew exactly why he was asking that. He could tell by the crushing silence that followed the question. Steve’s heart raced as much as he tried being calm. His hands shook.

“Yes,” Natasha said after a moment. “Yes, it is. Natasha Romanova.” The words had hardly even left her mouth before Natasha was standing up and gathering her belongings. Steve didn’t say anything. She didn’t either, not until she got to the gym doors, not until she tossed a bland wave over her shoulder. “Later, Rogers.” Steve might’ve responded, he might not have. He didn’t know, didn’t care.

It wasn’t her.

And once again it reminded Steve how much he’d wanted it to be.

*

_Natalia Alianovna Romanova._

That’s what that Swiss had said.

Natalia Alianovna Romanova.

Natalia.

Steve had thought about it through the search for the Winter Soldier, through the fall of SHIELD. Natasha was Natalia. Natalia was Natasha. He’d found his soulmate. But she’d tried avoiding him, she’d _lied_ to him. So Steve waited to confront her, waited until they’d ‘buried’ Fury, until she’d offered him the files on Bucky.

“It was you all along.” Natasha knew what he was referring to, as she always did.

“It was.” They stared at each other, burning blue eyes meeting cold green ones.

“…Why did you lie to me?” Natasha blinked. Didn’t respond. “Tell me,” Steve pressed, “please.” He didn’t care that Sam was only yards away. He didn’t care that they were in public. He had to know, he had to. Natasha stared at him, really stared. Then shrugged.

“I’m your soulmate, Steve,” she finally spoke up in a cold, controlled voice, “but. You’re not mine.”

*

He wanted her to be happy, but he still felt the curves of her name on his hand.

It only made it worse that everyone knew Steve was in love with her. They all looked at him with pity in their eyes. Pity Captain America didn’t need (even if he found himself staring at his palm longingly, wishing more than anything Natasha’s cool fingers were curling around his own).

But. Such is life.

*

Banner and Romanoff, Romanoff and Banner.

Steve still couldn’t wrap his head around that one.

*

_Ring, ring. Ring, ring. Ring, ri—_

“Hello?”

“… _Hi, Steve_.” Steve almost choked.

“ _Banner?_ Where the hell are you, Natasha said your signal dropped off the map!”

“ _I… had to get away from… from everything.”_

“You couldn’t even tell her that to her face?”

“ _I called to tell you something. Something you should know_.”

“…”

“ _I saw her hand, Steve. I saw the name on it.”_

“Yeah, and?”

“ _It wasn’t mine. I mean, I’d never really expected it to be, we weren’t—it was never…Ahem. The name, though, it wasn’t mine, it was yours. It’s always been you, Steve, Natasha is meant for you_.”

Click.

*

Steve found her in a gym again. The new Avengers facility gym. He didn’t know what she was doing or if she was tired or anything because he rushed in that room with fire in his eyes and his fists balled up in anger at his sides. Natasha stared at him curiously as he stormed towards her, uncertainty shining in her eyes for the first time, until Steve shouted out, loud and clear:

“I _am_ your soulmate!” Natasha blinked. Frowned.

“Who told you?” Bringing up Banner was a bad move, Natasha was still sore about that. As mad as he was, he didn’t want to hurt her (he could never hurt her). Just rant a little.

“Why did you lie to me?” Steve asked instead. Natasha stared up at him, trying to read the lines in his face and strain in his voice.

“Banner called you, didn’t he?” There was no real question in her words.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It does. Tell me where he is.”

“Natasha.” She tilted her head at the tone in his voice. “Natasha,” Steve said again, softer this time. “Why… why did you lie to me? You knew how I felt about you, you knew that I loved you… why did you lie? Do you just not want to be with me?”

“I…” Natasha pressed her lips together before running a hand through her unkempt hair. “Steve. I’m going to be honest with you here because apparently you always find out my secrets… I am a monster and I do not deserve you.”

…What?

Natasha noticed the anger in Steve’s eyes and rushed to cut him off.

“You’re a good person, Rogers. A great person, caring and kind and just. I’m a killer. A thief, a liar… I hurt people and I don’t care. I ruined lives, Steve. I ruined mine, too. I don’t….” Natasha meddled with her fingers and Steve noticed her messing with the bandage she typically wore to cover the name on her hand. “I don’t _deserve_ to be happy. You make me happy.”

“There’s nothing wrong with that,” Steve said earnestly. “You’re a good person, Natasha.”

“I’m not.”

“But you are.”

“But I’m _not_ , Steve!” Her voice cracked, broke almost, and Steve just wanted to sweep Natasha up in his arms and kiss her forehead and stroke her back and ease away all of the pain in her little body. Instead, he settled for placing a hand against her cheek. The tension washed out of her almost instantly, his touch enough to soothe her raging emotions in an instant.

“Natasha, listen to me,” Steve said, voice sallow. Natasha’s eyes glistened with tears as she stared at Captain America. “Everything you did, the person you were… it’s not who you are now. Did you do those things, yes, and were they bad, yes, but you didn’t have a choice.”

“I did,” Natasha argued, “I should’ve done something, I should’ve refused—”

“And let someone kill you? No, this was about self-preservation, Natasha. This was about you doing the one thing you’d been raised to do.” She didn’t look convinced. “Nat, you save lives now. You are good. You are.” It was the simplicity of how he said it that seemed to resonate with her. She didn’t jump into his arms and plant a kiss on his lips, but she did step into his arms and place her hands against his sides as if testing the waters.

After a moment of testing, she dove in a little deeper, coiling her arms around him as she rested her head against his chest. He imagined she could feel his heartbeat, knew he wasn’t lying (though why would he lie? He meant every word he said, soulmate or not—Natasha _was_ a good person).

“…I’m sorry, Steve.”

“It’s okay,” Steve said, though in his mind he thought out what he truly craved to say. _I love you, Natalia. I love you._


End file.
